Early career

In 1771, at the age of 13, George Vancouver entered the Royal Navy as a "young gentleman", a future candidate for midshipman.[3] He was selected to serve as a midshipman aboard HMS Resolution, on James Cook's second voyage (1772–1775) searching for Terra Australis. He also accompanied Cook's third voyage (1776–1778), this time aboard Resolution's sister ship, Discovery, and was present during the first European sighting and exploration of the Hawaiian Islands.[4] Upon his return to Britain in 1779, Vancouver was commissioned as a lieutenant and posted aboard the sloopMartin surveying coastlines.

Explorations

The Vancouver Expedition

Departing England with two ships in April 1791, Vancouver commanded an expedition charged with exploring the Pacific region. In its first year the expedition travelled to Cape Town, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and China, collecting botanical samples and surveying coastlines along the way. He formally claimed at Possession Point, King George Sound, Albany for the British. Proceeding to North America, Vancouver followed the coasts of present day Oregon and Washington northward. In April 1792 he encountered American Captain Robert Gray off the coast of Oregon just prior to Gray's sailing up the Columbia River.

Vancouver entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island and the Washington state mainland on 29 April 1792. His orders included a survey of every inlet and outlet on the west coast of the mainland, all the way north to Alaska. Most of this work was in small craft propelled by both sail and oar; maneuvering larger sail-powered vessels in uncharted waters was generally impractical and dangerous.

Vancouver named many features after friends and associates, including:

Vancouver was the second European to enter Discovery Islands area before sailing separately towards Nootka Sound.

After the summer surveying season ended, in November 1792 Vancouver went to Nootka, then the region's most important harbour, on contemporary Vancouver Island. Here he was to receive any British buildings and lands returned by the Spanish from claims by Francisco de Eliza for the Spanish crown. The Spanish commander, Juan Francisco Bodega y Quadra, was very cordial and he and Vancouver exchanged the maps they had made, but no agreement was reached; they decided to await further instructions. At this time, they decided to name the large island on which Nootka was now proven to be located as Quadra and Vancouver Island. Years later, as Spanish influence declined, the name was shortened to simply Vancouver Island.[9]

While at Nootka Sound Vancouver acquired Robert Gray's chart of the lower Columbia River. Gray had entered the river during the summer before sailing to Nootka Sound for repairs. Vancouver realized the importance of verifying Gray's information and conducting a more thorough survey. In October 1792, he sent Lieutenant Mount Hood.[10]

In 1794, he first went to Cook Inlet, the northernmost point of his exploration, and from there followed the coast south. Boat parties charted the east coasts of Chichagof and Baranof Islands, circumnavigated Admiralty Island, explored to the head of Lynn Canal, and charted the rest of Kuiu Island and nearly all of Kupreanof Island.[12] He then set sail for Great Britain by way of Cape Horn, returning in September 1795, thus completing a circumnavigation of South America.

Later life

In The Caneing in Conduit Street (1796), James Gillray caricatured Pitt's streetcorner assault on Vancouver.

Impressed by the view from Richmond Hill, Vancouver retired to Petersham, London.[13]

Vancouver faced difficulties when he returned home to England. The accomplished and politically well-connected naturalistArchibald Menzies complained that his servant had been pressed into service during a shipboard emergency; sailing masterJoseph Whidbey had a competing claim for pay as expedition astronomer; and Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelford, whom Vancouver had disciplined for numerous infractions and eventually sent home in disgrace, proceeded to harass him publicly and privately.

Pitt's allies, including his cousin, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, attacked Vancouver in the press. However, Pitt took a more direct role; on 29 August 1796 he sent Vancouver a letter heaping many insults on the head of his former captain, and challenging him to a duel. Vancouver gravely replied that he was unable "in a private capacity to answer for his public conduct in his official duty" and offered instead to submit to formal examination by flag officers. Pitt chose instead to stalk Vancouver, ultimately assaulting him on a London street corner. The terms of their subsequent legal dispute required both parties to keep the peace, but nothing stopped Vancouver's civilian brother Charles from interposing and giving Pitt blow after blow until onlookers restrained the attacker. Charges and counter-charges flew in the press, with the wealthy Camelford faction having the greater firepower until Vancouver, ailing from his long naval service, died.

Death

Vancouver, one of Britain's greatest explorers and navigators, died in obscurity on 10 May 1798 at the age of 40, less than three years after completing his voyages and expeditions.[14] His grave is in the churchyard of St Peter's Church, Petersham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. In 1841 a memorial plaque was erected in the church by the Hudson Bay Company.[15] His grave in Portland stone, renovated in the 1960s, is now Grade II listed in view of its historical associations.[15][16]

Legacy

Navigation

Vancouver determined that the Northwest Passage did not exist at the latitudes that had long been suggested. His charts of the North American northwest coast were so extremely accurate that they served as the key reference for coastal navigation for generations. Robin Fisher, the academic Vice President of Mount Royal University in Calgary and author of two books on Vancouver, states:

He put the northwest coast on the map...He drew up a map of the north-west coast that was accurate to the 9th degree, to the point it was still being used into the modern day as a navigational aid. That's unusual for a map from that early a time.[17]

However, Vancouver failed to discover two of the largest and most important rivers on the Pacific coast, the Fraser River and the Columbia River. He also missed the Skeena River near Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia. Vancouver did eventually learn of the river before he finished his survey—from Robert Gray, captain of the American merchant ship that conducted the first Euroamerican sailing of the Columbia River on 11 May 1792, after first sighting it on an earlier voyage in 1788. However it and the Fraser River never made it onto Vancouver's charts. Stephen R. Bown, noted in Mercator's World magazine (November/December 1999) that:

How Vancouver could have missed these rivers while accurately charting hundreds of comparatively insignificant inlets, islands, and streams is hard to fathom. What is certain is that his failure to spot the Columbia had great implications for the future political development of the Pacific Northwest....[18][19]

While it is difficult to comprehend how Vancouver missed the Fraser River, much of this river's delta was subject to flooding and summer freshet which prevented the captain from spotting any of its great channels as he sailed the entire shoreline from Point Roberts, Washington to Point Grey in 1792.[20] The Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, with the 1791 Francisco de Eliza expedition preceding Vancouver by a year, had also missed the Fraser River although they knew from its muddy plume that there was a major river located nearby.[20]

Indigenous peoples

Vancouver generally established a good rapport with both Indians and European trappers. Captain Vancouver played an undeniable role in the subsequent series of upheavals and losses in the lives and homelands of the Indians on the North American Pacific Coast, since his explorations opened up the region to European colonization of the New World. Historical records show Vancouver enjoyed good relations with native leaders both in Hawaii – where King Kamehameha I ceded Hawaii to Vancouver in 1794 – as well as the Pacific Northwest and California.[21] Vancouver's journals exhibit a high degree of sensitivity to natives. He wrote of meeting the Chumash people,[11] and of his exploration of a small island on the Alaskan coast on which an important burial site was marked by a sepulchre of "peculiar character" lined with boards and fragments of military instruments lying near a square box covered with mats.[21] Vancouver states:

This we naturally conjectured contained the remains of some person of consequence, and it much excited the curiosity of some of our party; but as further examination could not possibly have served any useful purpose, and might have given umbrage and pain to the friends of the deceased, should it be their custom to visit the repositories of their dead, I did not think it right that it should be disturbed.[21]

Vancouver also displayed contempt in his journals towards unscrupulous western traders who provided guns to natives by writing:

I am extremely concerned to be compelled to state here, that many of the traders from the civilised world have not only pursued a line of conduct, diametrically opposite to the true principles of justice in their commercial dealings, but have fomented discords, and stirred up contentions, between the different tribes, in order to increase the demand for these destructive engines... They have been likewise eager to instruct the natives in the use of European arms of all descriptions; and have shewn by their own example, that they consider gain as the only object of pursuit; and whether this be acquired by fair and honourable means, or otherwise, so long as the advantage is secured, the manner how it is obtained seems to have been, with too many of them, but a very secondary consideration.[21]

Robin Fisher notes that Vancouver's "relationships with aboriginal groups were generally peaceful; indeed, his detailed survey would not have been possible if they had been hostile."[21] While there were hostile incidents at the end of Vancouver's last season – the most serious of which involved a clash with Tlingits at Behm Canal in southeast Alaska in 1794 – these were the exceptions to Vancouver's exploration of the U.S. and Canadian Northwest coast.[21]

Despite a long history of warfare between Britain and Spain, Vancouver maintained excellent relations with his Spanish counterparts and even fêted a Spanish sea captain aboard his ship Discovery during his 1792 trip to the Vancouver region.[17]

Commemorative Monument is located on the beach in North Kihei, Maui, Hawaii, commemorating George Vancouver's contribution of coffee and root vegetables to the islands of Hawaii, inscribed by Pierre Elliot Trudeau 2 December 1967.

Many collections were made on the voyage: one was donated by Archibald Menzies to the British Museum 1796; another made by surgeon George Goodman Hewett (1765–1834) was donated by A. W. Franks to the British Museum in 1891. An account of these has been published.[22]

250th birthday commemorations

Canada Post issued a $1.55 postage stamp to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Vancouver's birth, on 22 June 2007. The stamp has an embossed image of Vancouver seen from behind as he gazes forward towards a mountainous coastline. This may be the first Canadian stamp not to show the subject's face.[23]

The City of [24]

The Musqueam native elder Larry Grant attended the festivities and acknowledged that some of his people might disapprove of his presence, but also noted:

Many people don't feel aboriginal people should be celebrating this occasion...I believe it has helped the world and that's part of who we are. That's the legacy of our people. We're generous to a fault. The legacy is strong and a good one, in the sense that without the first nations working with the colonials, it [B.C.] wouldn't have been part of Canada to begin with and Britain would be the poorer for it.[24]

Origins of the family name

There has been some debate about the origins of the Vancouver name. It is now commonly accepted that the name Vancouver derives from the expression van Coevorden, meaning "(originating) from Coevorden", a city in the northeast of the Netherlands. This city is apparently named after the "Coeverden" family of the 13 – 15th century. An alternative theory[25] is that Vancouver is a misspelling or anglicized version of Van Couwen, a Dutch name.[26]

In the 16th century, a number of businessmen from the Coevorden area (and the Netherlands in general) did move to England. Some of them were known as Van Coeverden. Others adopted the surname Oxford, as in oxen fording (a river), which is approximately the English translation of Coevorden. However this is not the exact name of the noble family mentioned in the history books that claim Vancouver's noble lineage: that name was Coeverden not Coevorden.

In the 1970s, Adrien Mansvelt, a former Consul General of the Netherlands based in Vancouver, published a collation of information in both historical and genealogical journals and in the Vancouver Sun newspaper.[27][28][29] Mansvelt's theory was later presented by the city during the Expo 86World's Fair, as historical fact.

Mr. Mansvelt's theories, however, are based on many assumptions and possibilities that may be flawed. Genealogy is the study or investigation of ancestry and family history, with undeniable proof of traceability through family lineage of birth, marriage and death records. Mansveld bases his research on no such proof and uses the words "assumed", "possible" and "may" time and again throughout his essay. This problematic information was then used as rock solid proof for Mr. W. Kaye Lamb to write his book A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, 1791–1795.[30]

W. Kaye Lamb, in summarizing Mansvelt's unsubstantiated 1973 research, suggests evidence of close family ties between the Vancouver family of Britain and the Van Coeverden family of Holland as well as George Vancouver's own words from his diaries in referring to his Dutch ancestry:

As the name Vancouver suggests, the Vancouvers were of Dutch origin. Popular theory suggests that they were descended from the titled van Coeverden family, one of the oldest in the Netherlands. By the twelfth century, and for many years thereafter, their castle at [31]

George Vancouver named the south point of what is now Couverden Island, Alaska as Point Couverden during his exploration of the North American Pacific coast, supposedly in honour of what is presumed to be his family's hometown of Coevorden.[32] It is located at the western point of entry to Lynn Canal in southeastern Alaska.[33]

Works by George Vancouver

Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World in the Years 1791–95, by George Vancouver ISBN 0-7812-5100-1. The work was completed by his brother John in 6 books. 1798 edition available online in 3 volumes:

External links

George Vancouver (1757–1798), Explorer, illustrations in the National Portrait Gallery.

The True Meaning of Vancouver – Etymology of his name.

Gary Little's interactive Google map showing the path Vancouver followed during his 11-day survey of the southwest coast of British Columbia

Coevorden: What connection does Vancouver have with Coevorden, an industrial town of about 20,000 in the northeast Netherlands?- The History of Metropolitan Vancouver website. (Retrieved on 11 June 2007)

This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.

Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.